Topic: 'Nom' Pokémon Master Guides Appreciation Thread

Back in the hazy days of Pokemon Red & Blue, Nintendo Official Magazine (UK) released their first Pokémon Master Guide. They continually updated these to include any new important information or to include new games of the same generation (such as Pokémon Yellow). I think the first one I bought was No. 2. I cannot accurately express how much I loved this guide. It really was the centre-point of the whole Pokémon craze for me. I poured countless hours into studying every page, and because of this learned everything there is to know about those damn games. Without this guide I would have been a complete bumbling fool, and would probably have ended up proudly marching into the Elite Four's gilded halls with a level 64 Rattata and a 'seriously-ace' high level Weedle. To this day I don't think I've ever read a more informative, well laid-out or comprehensive guide, and to top it all it cost only £3.95. The whole thing was written in hilarious Pokemon language. Needles to say, a lot of things were "Ace!" and I think the prefix 'Poké was used in about every conceivable combination in the English language. I've still got my worn and dog-eared Pokemon Master Guide No. 3 (which I think I bought to replace No.2, but I was so young at the time I really can't remember). I've also got No. 6, which covered Gold and Silver, and was just as good if not better.

I started this because I wanted to see if anyone else can remember these guides, and if you still have any sitting on a shelf gathering dust. Does anyone know how many they made? and which ones do you own? They were such an intergral part of the Pokémon craze for me I had to start this thread to see if anyone else has something to contribute about them.

Hello MmBuddha,

Im from Glasgow, UK and i was born in February 1992, so the pokemon craze in 1999-2001 was absolutely a massive part of my life then, and even now Im all over ebay trying to buy, among other things, the NOM pokemon master guide that you mention.

I remember one of the Gold/Silver guides was actually a Monster guide - it was a shiny gold cover - the Master was a shiny silver. They were both about $4

the Monster guide was more useful, telling you all the breeding tactics, how to get a baby Squirtle with Crunch, etc.

I also had a NOM master guide to i think Yellow version, with Mewtwo and a master ball on the cover, with other pokemon in a ring around it. I seem to remember staring longingly at how in Yellow, each gym leader had much higher level pokemon, and it was more like the anime - which i, needless to say, was up at 7 AM to watch on a Saturday on cd:uk (Is that what it was called? I was never interested in the music part, or music in general. I also watche dlive and kicking and CBBC) , and it also came on at 3.40 pm after school, i remember having to really run back home to catch pokemon, because school ended at 3:30! i usually got in at 3:45.

Yeah, each leader also had pokemon like the anime - Brock had a vulpix, for example. I was really into my NOM guides and my NOM collection, which admittedly i didnt properly start until Gamecube came out, but i have pretty much every GC NOM issue, from around July 2002 to late 2006. Before that, my older brothers had the odd NOM, and the odd n64 magazine, but most of these seem to have disappeared.

My Yellow master guide, has disappeared into the black hole. I was particularly attached to that one, since it had the allure of pertaining to a game i didn't have, but knew about, and also i got it quite late, it was still sitting on the shelf (maybe several months after it came out) in i think Tesco maryhill (when it was the shopping centre, before it was the 24hour store) and i was actually with my gran who got me it.

So, i see no one's replied to this since March 2010, and probably you won't see this even, the board is obviously for kids BORN around 2000 , to talk about the new (and pretty darn poor) pokemon games.

So in reply, yes, there are others to whom those guides meant everything. I had to make do most evenings with just reading the guide, poring over the factfiles, memorizing when each pokemon learned what, counting the little dittos on the page for the competition (Remember that?), because my brother was playing the game on the GBC.... hahahaha!

I think there were - 1, for Red and Blue 2, for Yellow 3, G/S guide 4, G/S breeding/levelling up guide. If there are others i dont know them, but i think there were others from that time. They also released some for other games (i.e. big magazine guides, sold separately ).

Hope you find yours

@SloppyWriter779 tl:dr you do realise this topic is like, 2 years old right?

As least the good sir has an eloquent appreciation to share, unlike the rest of us

I realize how old this thread is, but i just picked one of these up today on my local market for 50p along with a mint gameboy pocket limited edition in the original gameboy colour scheme for £5...

The condition is...well it's not perfect. But it's full of nostalgic goodness, found an postal order form for the original pokemon games and gameboy color bundles!

awesome day though!